Making the Movie’s Complete Oscars Predictions and Analysis

When and What Channel

First things first. The show will air on Sunday, March 4, 5pm PST on ABC.

Gearing up for the big night? I know I am. Now that the nominees have been known for about a week, I thought I’d analyze the categories and make some predictions.

Qualifications

What are my qualifications for predicting? I’ve been working in the industry for more than a decade and I hear the scuttlebutt. Historically, I get a good sense of what films have momentum going into Oscar night. Also, I’ve had the good fortune to see most of the nominees this year. In addition, I have a track record of winning the office Oscar pool several times. So take that for what you will.

Analysis: This category has a ranked ballot. It is still new enough that Academy members haven’t figured out how to game it. A lot of people don’t understand ranked ballots. Essentially, what it means is that the big, expensive, prestige movies have not been winning. The films that everyone at least kinda likes are the winners. You can read at length about the reasons that Moonlight won last year. If anything, the trends that pushed that over La La Land should continue even stronger this year.

Many will say that hearkens well for Call Me By Your Name, another gay coming-of-age film. However, I think Call is more divisive than Moonlight. The main characters lead a life of privilege and there is little dramatic conflict in the story. Lady Bird has seemed to have a broader appeal and less backlash. It also has a strong female voice in the year of #metoo.

Three Billboards, with the dynamic central performance by Frances McDormand, could also get some momentum from the cultural moment. I doubt it, though, since it has been way more divisive. The marginalization of the black characters has lead many to dub it “problematic.” On a personal note, I actively disliked the film and the way it manipulates the audience. It has a terrible cop-out ending that leaves a bitter note. Although it has some other awards momentum, notably winning the highly-predictive SAG Ensemble Award, I do not think it has enough love to overcome a ranked ballot system. A sizable group will be ranking “this year’s Crash” last.

Dunkirk was headed into awards season strong but the momentum seems to have faded. That, Darkest Hour and The Post are the kind of big production-value, glossy films that used to win. The Post, in my opinion, is coasting the reputation of Spielberg, Hanks and Streep. It is an okay movie, crafted with consummate skill, but dramatically confused and treacly.

Phantom Thread will be the choice of Academy voters who like auteur cinema. It is P.T. Anderson’s portrait of an artist as a costume designer. It’s too weird and dark, I think, to be a consensus ballot pick.

Get Out is the lowest-budget film, and has a very strong fan club. However, I have to think the older generation of Academy voters just will not get it. They won’t understand or appreciate the satirical aspects. And of course, horror is perhaps the Academy’s least favorite genre. The same group that will be putting Three Billboards at #1 on their ballots will probably be putting this last. Likewise, the groups that are voting for the big production value movies will also be ranking this film pretty low.

That leaves The Shape of Water. As the movie with the most nominations, it is the one to beat. It has also been pretty inoffensive — there are very few people who absolutely despise the film. Academy members will also appreciate the craft aspects of the film more than average filmgoers. Things like costume, lighting, production design etc. are all very skillfully blended in ways that help tell the story. That said, it is far from a lock, especially when there are movies like Lady Bird that may win the hearts of voters.

Performance by an actor in a leading role

Timothée Chalamet in Call Me by Your Name

Daniel Day-Lewis in Phantom Thread

Daniel Kaluuya in Get Out

Gary Oldman in Darkest Hour

Denzel Washington in Roman J. Israel, Esq.

Analysis: I loved all of these performances! Chalamet and Kaluuya are two strong ‘debuts’ and have a real chance here. While the best actress category has a history of wins by ingenues, this category has historically gone to mid- and late-career iconic roles. If that trend holds, that leaves the other three nominees. Day-Lewis won in 2012 for Lincoln, so many voters will probably feel he doesn’t need another award so soon. Denzel is fantastic, as usual, but the movie has gotten little love. My personal prediction is Gary Oldman, an actor with a long history of phenomenal performances, absolutely embodying Winston Churchill, much the way Day-Lewis did Abraham Lincoln.

Performance by an actor in a supporting role

Willem Dafoe in The Florida Project

Woody Harrelson in Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

Richard Jenkins in The Shape of Water

Christopher Plummer in All the Money in the World

Sam Rockwell in Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

Analysis: Even if Three Billboards ends up with a surprising amount of love, Woody and Sam will probably cancel each other out. Plummer’s nom is widely believed to be there simply as a pat on the back for replacing Kevin Spacey at the last minute. That leaves Dafoe and Jenkins. Jenkins was nominated in 2008 but did not win. The Academy likes him and it loves Water (judging by the amount of nominations). However, that character is nowhere near as memorable as Dafoe’s character in Florida Project. Dafoe has never been nominated, despite a long history of strong screen performances. It seems like he may be a big chilly as a person and unwilling to play the glad-handing game. I give the edge to Dafoe simply on performance, but I would not be surprised if Jenkins wins in a Shape of Water love-fest.

Performance by an actress in a leading role

Sally Hawkins in The Shape of Water

Frances McDormand in Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

Margot Robbie in I, Tonya

Saoirse Ronan in Lady Bird

Meryl Streep in The Post

Analysis: This one is difficult to call. I never thought I’d rule out Meryl Streep first, but she was not helped by the approach of The Post, which requires her character to be so weak and milquetoasty. Margot and Saoirse are brilliant, especially when you consider they are non-Americans playing very American roles. However, Frances McDormand has the heat and Sally Hawkins is the lead in the film that got the most nominations. I give the edge to Frances, even though I have reservations about Three Billboards as a film. No one can deny her righteous fury, and a lot of voters will be looking to see that fury in an acceptance speech.

Performance by an actress in a supporting role

Mary J. Blige in Mudbound

Allison Janney in I, Tonya

Lesley Manville in Phantom Thread

Laurie Metcalf in Lady Bird

Octavia Spencer in The Shape of Water

Analysis: The favored performance here is Allison Janney’s. I can envision scenarios where any of the other nominees win, especially Laurie Metcalf, who really broke my heart in Lady Bird.

Best animated feature film of the year

The Boss Baby Tom McGrath and Ramsey Naito

The Breadwinner Nora Twomey and Anthony Leo

Coco Lee Unkrich and Darla K. Anderson

Ferdinand Carlos Saldanha

Loving Vincent Dorota Kobiela, Hugh Welchman and Ivan Mactaggart

Analysis: This pretty much always goes to the PIXAR/Disney movie. So… Coco. My theory is that not enough Academy members are friends with the people who make the weird indie animated movies and the other Hollywood studios (say, DreamWorks with Boss Baby) don’t get enough respect from the non-animation wing voters.

Achievement in cinematography

Blade Runner 2049 Roger A. Deakins

Darkest Hour Bruno Delbonnel

Dunkirk Hoyte van Hoytema

Mudbound Rachel Morrison

The Shape of Water Dan Laustsen

Analysis: Roger Deakins is a legend and, amazingly, has never won. This might not be his year, however, since Rachel Morrison’s work in Mudbound is incredible and Bruno Delbonnel’s lensing of Darkest Hour is perhaps what elevated that film to a Best Picture level. Dunkirk, shot on film for IMAX release, is also an achievement. If Shape of Water is sweeping the technical categories, it could even win here, although that seems less likely. I’m still predicting Deakins, but people have been wrong with that prediction thirteen times before.

Achievement in costume design

Beauty and the Beast Jacqueline Durran

Darkest Hour Jacqueline Durran

Phantom Thread Mark Bridges

The Shape of Water Luis Sequeira

Victoria & Abdul Consolata Boyle

Analysis: If Phantom Thread doesn’t win this, I will be very surprised. It has the unfair advantage of the costumes telling a huge part of the story, many times being like another character on the screen.

Achievement in directing

Dunkirk Christopher Nolan

Get Out Jordan Peele

Lady Bird Greta Gerwig

Phantom Thread Paul Thomas Anderson

The Shape of Water Guillermo del Toro

Analysis: This is a tough cookie. Guillermo del Toro is the favorite. However, any of the other nominees is worthy. Peele and Gerwig might get marginalized since they are both coming in as first-time directors. Nolan and Anderson (similar to del Toro) are part of the 90’s indie wave that may now finally be getting some prestige recognition. The control and craft that are on display in their films are hard to deny. Still, I like del Toro since it would be great if the ‘Three Musketeers’ of Mexican cinema all had Best Director hardware.

Last Men in Aleppo Feras Fayyad, Kareem Abeed and Søren Steen Jespersen

Strong Island Yance Ford and Joslyn Barnes

Analysis: The only one of these I’ve seen is Icarus, and it was very good. Academy voters will like that Vladimir Putin is one of the villains of the story. Faces Places has the prestige of Agnès Varda. Last Men in Aleppo seems to be doing well on Gold Derby.

Best documentary short subject

“Edith+Eddie” Laura Checkoway and Thomas Lee Wright

“Heaven Is a Traffic Jam on the 405” Frank Stiefel

“Heroin(e)” Elaine McMillion Sheldon and Kerrin Sheldon

“Knife Skills” Thomas Lennon

“Traffic Stop” Kate Davis and David Heilbroner

Analysis: I have made the mistake in the past of trying to predict these short film categories from actually watching the films. The tack I am taking this year is to read a summary of what they are about and then think which one of those sounds like what an Academy voter would pick. HBO has good track record here, so I’m going their “Traffic Stop”.

Achievement in film editing

Baby Driver Paul Machliss and Jonathan Amos

Dunkirk Lee Smith

I, Tonya Tatiana S. Riegel

The Shape of Water Sidney Wolinsky

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri Jon Gregory

Analysis: This category would seem to belong to Dunkirk. Nevermind that there is way more to editing than just the cuts and the layering in ‘splosions, that’s what the Academy in general seems to award. Dunkirk is beautifully edited, but for more than that reason. If there is an upset here, I pick Baby Driver, which is, in many ways, an extended music video and thus very ‘edit forward’.

Best foreign language film of the year

A Fantastic Woman Chile

The Insult Lebanon

Loveless Russia

On Body and Soul Hungary

The Square Sweden

The Square is the best-known movie here. It also has a lot of English language in it, so WTF? A Fantastic Woman is the choice of the awards gurus, so I’m going with that for now.

Achievement in makeup and hairstyling

Darkest Hour Kazuhiro Tsuji, David Malinowski and Lucy Sibbick

Victoria & Abdul Daniel Phillips and Lou Sheppard

Wonder Arjen Tuiten

Analysis: This category has had some surprising picks. (Suicide Squad! Well-deserved, but still surprising.) Still, I’ll predict the safe choice of Darkest Hour, which had Gary Oldman’s brilliant Churchill makeup and is also a Best Picture nominee.

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original score)

Dunkirk Hans Zimmer

Phantom Thread Jonny Greenwood

The Shape of Water Alexandre Desplat

Star Wars: The Last Jedi John Williams

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri Carter Burwell

Analysis: Your best bets here are Dunkirk, with that incessant ticking clock beat, and The Shape of Water, with the lush, memorable theme. I give the edge to Desplat and Shape of Water.

Achievement in music written for motion pictures (Original song)

“Mighty River” from Mudbound

Music and Lyric by Mary J. Blige, Raphael Saadiq and Taura Stinson

“Mystery Of Love” from Call Me by Your Name

Music and Lyric by Sufjan Stevens

“Remember Me” from Coco

Music and Lyric by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez

“Stand Up For Something” from Marshall

Music by Diane Warren; Lyric by Lonnie R. Lynn and Diane Warren

“This Is Me” from The Greatest Showman

Music and Lyric by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul

Analysis: “This Is Me” seems to have the most heat going in. Coco is basically a movie-length ad for “Remember Me”. That said, it doesn’t take long for an Academy member to listen to the nominees and pick, you know, what is the song they like best. “Mystery of Love” or “Mighty River” might sneak in. (No one seems to be hyping the song from Marshall.)

Achievement in production design

Beauty and the Beast Production Design: Sarah Greenwood; Set Decoration: Katie Spencer

The Shape of Water Production Design: Paul Denham Austerberry; Set Decoration: Shane Vieau and Jeff Melvin

Analysis: These are all outstanding examples of production design. If Shape of Water is sweeping the technical categories, as it is poised to do, then this is another good place for it to win. Dunkirk/em> and Darkest Hour are also up for Best Picture, but they might cancel each other out a bit, seeing as they are from the same time period. I wouldn’t rule out either Beast or Blade Runner, as they are pinnacles of cinematic imagination. Both, however, are drafting on the previous design work of earlier films, so the Academy will probably choose to go with something “pure,” like Shape.

Best animated short film

Dear Basketball Glen Keane and Kobe Bryant

Garden Party Victor Caire and Gabriel Grapperon

Lou Dave Mullins and Dana Murray

Negative Space Max Porter and Ru Kuwahata

Revolting Rhymes Jakob Schuh and Jan Lachauer

Analysis: Always pick the PIXAR. That means “Lou”. However, Glen Keane is a legendary Disney Renaissance animator and should have a lot of friends in the Academy, so I give “Dear Basketball” an outside shot.

Best live action short film

DeKalb Elementary Reed Van Dyk

The Eleven O’Clock Derin Seale and Josh Lawson

My Nephew Emmett Kevin Wilson, Jr.

The Silent Child Chris Overton and Rachel Shenton

Watu Wote/All of Us Katja Benrath and Tobias Rosen

“DeKalb Elementary” seems to be leading among the online predictors as I write. “My Nephew Emmett” is about Emmett Till, which should attract some Academy voters looking to reward a story about racism.

Achievement in sound editing

Baby Driver Julian Slater

Blade Runner 2049 Mark Mangini and Theo Green

Dunkirk Richard King and Alex Gibson

The Shape of Water Nathan Robitaille and Nelson Ferreira

Star Wars: The Last Jedi Matthew Wood and Ren Klyce

Analysis: Dunkirk. The others also have beautiful sound editing. I might give it to Blade Runner 2049, personally, because so many of the environments in that movie are really defined by the sounds.

Analysis: Dunkirk. Again, this often goes in tandem with Sound Editing. I actually disagree with Christopher Nolan’s philosophy of sound mixes, but there’s no denying that the Academy doesn’t. They nominated Interstellar, The Dark Knight and awarded Inception.

War for the Planet of the Apes Joe Letteri, Daniel Barrett, Dan Lemmon and Joel Whist

Analysis: A lot of people are predicting Apes here, and it would be a well-deserved win. That team has advanced the performance animation techniques every film. However, Blade Runner is going to attract all the votes from the voters who prefer their visual effects to be more practical, less digital. It’s also a nominee for Best Cinematography, which means it has a style to the effects that is getting appreciated by the more visually-sophisticated Academy audiences.

Adapted screenplay

Call Me by Your Name Screenplay by James Ivory

The Disaster Artist Screenplay by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber

Logan Screenplay by Scott Frank & James Mangold and Michael Green; Story by James Mangold

Molly’s Game Written for the screen by Aaron Sorkin

Mudbound Screenplay by Virgil Williams and Dee Rees

Analysis: Only one of these is also up for Best Picture, and that’s Call. Molly’s Game I love for all its Sorkin-ness, but it doesn’t seem to be getting wider support. Mudbound could sneak in here, doing such a nice job of adapting the poetic inner monologues of the underlying book.

Original screenplay

The Big Sick Written by Emily V. Gordon & Kumail Nanjiani

Get Out Written by Jordan Peele

Lady Bird Written by Greta Gerwig

The Shape of Water Screenplay by Guillermo del Toro & Vanessa Taylor; Story by Guillermo del Toro

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri Written by Martin McDonagh

Analysis: Lady Bird? Three Billboards? Shape of Water? My pick here is Get Out, which is a thoroughly brilliant script and which probably won’t be getting as much love in the other places it is nominated. It seems right for Jordan Peele to get an award somewhere!

Director / screenwriter Scott Cooper doesn’t believe in off-camera rehearsals. He’ll block out a scene loosely with his d.p. and the actors, but he wants the first performance captured on film. And I do mean film. “I’ll shoot on film until they tell me I can’t,” Scott tells Backstory magazine interviewer Jeff Goldsmith after a screening of Hostiles I attended at LA Film School.

Cooper doesn’t even believe in table reads. It gives the producers a chance to second guess things. Whatever his method, it allows for some powerful performances. Cooper made a big splash directing Jeff Bridges to an Oscar in Crazy Heart. With Hostiles, the period story of a US Army captain ordered to escort a former Cheyenne enemy chief to his Montana homeland, there are again Cooper-directed performances in the conversation.

Christain Bale, as the captain, and Rosamund Pike, as a woman who witnessed her family killed by a renegade band of bandits both get big acting moments of the kind that have drawn awards. Bale, as the lead of the film, is all meaningful grunts. I wish his character’s arc from hatred of the chief (Wes Studi) to grudging respect had been a more carefully drawn. I also wish the movie was either from more of the Native American perspective or didn’t seem to absolve the atrocities committed by the US Army.

Cooper’s script adapts an unpublished manuscript from the late (great) Donald E. Stewart. Although it is set in the American West, it has unmistakeable resonance with the present moment’s wars, which Cooper said was quite intended. The story has too much both-sides-ism for the present cultural moment, which I’m guessing will keep it from the marquee awards categories. If the Native characters had been allowed more screen time and #bigactingmoments, it might be a different story.

Beyond acting, the guild categories are a better bet. The production design, by Donald Graham Burt, evokes the late 1800’s in an unflashy and lived-in way and the grand American landscapes are photographed beautifully by Masanobu Takayanagi. Perhaps the best aspect is the carefully attention to Cheyenne language and custom appropriate to the time. There is not an award for cultural recreation, sadly.

Here are some quick thoughts on awards movies I’ve seen lately, the ones I’m allowed to talk about any way:

Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri

Possible nomination for Frances McDormand but I would be surprised if it gets anything beyond that. While writer/director Martin McDonagh has a cult following, I don’t think many of them are Academy members and, anyway, this isn’t his best work. The screenplay has a weak ending and some lazy coincidences that probably cancel out the clever flips of who the audience is rooting for.

Lady Bird

This is a great movie on many levels: writing, directing, acting. Many are saying it could be this year’s Moonlight. That’s possible, but I’d say it is still a major underdog. This is a very small and contained movie that will have difficulty against something as grand as Dunkirk. The editing is not flashy but it is excellent and I would love to see a nom there.

Darkest Hour

I really had my hair blown back by this. Strong for nominations in all the major categories, especially the tech ones. The screenplay couches Churchill as a writer hero, so look for the writer’s branch especially to champion this one. There is room for two movies about Dunkirk to

The Big Sick

This is a lovely rom-com which unfortunately is a category the Academy has historically snubbed. However, I can see the writer’s branch nominating the very personal script from Kumail Nanjani and Emily V. Gordon. If you have Amazon Prime, this is now available to watch for free.

Last Flag Flying

There is a contingent that really wanted to see writer/director Richard Linklater win for Boyhood. That might help this film which purports to be about the current Iraq War, but which is really about the Vietnam War. The acting is strong with all three main leads: Steve Carrell, Laurence Fishburne and Bryan Cranston getting their moments. I think Cranston has the best chance of getting nominated, since his character is the one that undergoes the most change. The politics of the film are pretty wishy-washy, which I think will hurt with Academy voters, even though it does have a strong Boomer appeal.

Last night I had the good fortune to see the last of the modern Apes trilogy at Arclight theaters, followed by a talkback with some of the crew. Writer/director Matt Reeves, actor Andy Serkis, VFX Supervisor Joe Letteri and editors William Hoy and Stan Salfas talked about the three year process of bringing the story to the big screen.

Reeves spoke about how he manages to preserve his vision, even on big-budget studio films. For him, this involves an attitude from the get-go of, “I only know how to make my vision of the movie, not 60% my vision and 40% someone else’s.” He internalizes studio notes as pointing to problems, not necessarily to solutions.

Every time Andy Serkis does an impressive mo-cap performance, there is a push to see him nominated in the acting category. Moderator Pete Hammond played some side-by-side footage showing Serkis performing in a mo-cap suit and the final result with the all-digital character, Caesar. (Letteri noted that, while all the apes are 100% digital, they did use Serkis’ real tears in one scene.) Reeves stressed that it was Serkis’ performance that let the editors do their cut, and it was Serkis’ performance that all of the digital animation was pushed to equal.

The editors spoke about how difficult it was to find the right balance in the VFX versions of Steve Zahn’s performance as Bad Ape where the character was believable instead of cartoonish. The important thing always was to honor the performance of the actor.

I, for one, am on the side of nominating motion capture acting performances alongside the analog ones. Filmmakers have always enhanced actor performances, from makeup prosthetics to a whole array of editing tricks. These days, an editor might use an actor’s body from take 3 and their head from take 6 and their voice from take 9 in a single shot. They might add digital makeup to the point where most of an actor’s face is digitally re-created. Where you draw the line in what should be recognized and awarded as screen acting is not clear. It may very well be that in the future the vast majority of screen performances are more like Serkis’ in the Apes movies.

Well, enough of my soapbox. War for the Planet of the Apes is an epic film — with a great assist from Michael Giacchino’s epic score. Add it to the other two recent Apes films and you have a yet more epic achievement in filmmaking. It’s hard to think of a film where the visual effects technology is so central to telling the story, yet disappears so completely. War for the Planet of the Apes may not reach the promised land of awards recognition, but it looks ahead to a future where such work gets the recognition it deserves.

War for the Planet of the Apes is available on Digital and arrives on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray on October 24.

The Whole Plate: Framing Megan Fox – Whether or not you care about Megan Fox’s character in the Transformers movies, this a textbook lesson in how the visuals of a film can subvert the narrative of a film.

In 1930, All Quiet on the Western Front won the Academy Award for Best Picture. It is based on the famous anti-war novel of the same name, set during World War I, the so-called War to End All Wars.

The Variety review for the film stated: “The League of Nations could make no better investment than to buy up the master-print, reproduce it in every language, to be shown in all the nations until the word ‘war’ is taken out of the dictionaries.”

Neither the book nor the film prevented World War II.

Bad Wars and Good War Movies

War is by its very nature a high-drama enterprise. The stakes are not only life and death, but the fate of nations. It is natural for filmmakers to be drawn to stories set during war.

However, war is absolutely awful. As the book and documentary series Five Came Back recently showed, filmmakers who have experienced war firsthand are profoundly changed, perhaps even traumatized.

Even filmmakers who never served — say Steven Spielberg with Saving Private Ryan or Francis Ford Coppola with Apocalypse Now or Stanley Kubrick with Full Metal Jacket — are wary of making movies that glorify war.

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